Hercules Sword
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Hercules Sword |
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| Price per Unit (piece):
$79.00
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Own this Herculean sword and smite the enemy! Hercules is the Roman name for the mythical Greek hero Heracles, son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmena. In Roman works of art and in Renaissance and post-Renaissance art that adapts Roman iconography, Hercules can be identified by his attributes, the lion skin and the club: in mosaic he is shown tanned black, a virile aspect. He is an example of action and masculinity, and thus embodies characteristics such as great strength, great courage, and great appetites, including erotic adventures with both women and boys or young men. These qualities did not prevent him from being regarded as a playful figure who used games to relax from his labors and played a great deal with children. While he was a champion and a great warrior, he was not above cheating and using any unfair trick to his advantage. However, he was renowned as having "made the world safe for mankind" by destroying many dangerous monsters. His self-sacrifice obtained him the ascent to the Olympian realms and he was welcomed by the gods. In popular culture the Romans adopted the Etruscan Hercle, a hero-figure that had already been influenced by Greek culture — especially in the conventions of his representation — but who had experienced an autonomous development. Etruscan Hercle appears in the elaborate illustrative engraved designs on the backs of Etruscan bronze mirrors made during the fourth century BC, which were favoured grave goods. Their specific literary references have been lost, with the loss of all Etruscan literature, but the image of the mature, bearded Hercules suckling at Uni/Juno's breast, engraved on a mirror back from Volterra, is distinctively Etruscan. Also a two way mirror. This Hercle/Hercules — the Hercle of the ejaculation "Mehercle!" — remained a popular cult figure in the Roman legions. The literary Greek versions of his life and works were appropriated by literate Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards, essentially unchanged, but Latin literature of Hercules added anecdotal detail of its own, some of it linking the hero with the geography of the Western Mediterranean. Details of the Greek cult, which mixed chthonic libations and uneaten holocausts with Olympian services, were adapted to specifically Roman requirements as well, as Hercules became the founding figure of Herculaneum and other places, and his cult became entwined with Imperial cult, as shown in surviving frescoes in the Herculanean collegium that was the Lacus Curtius. This altar has been dated to the 6th or 5th century BC. It stood near the Temple of Hercules Victor. Hercules became popular with merchants, who customarily paid him a tithe of their profits. Mark Antony identified himself with Hercules, and even invented a son of Hercules, called Anton, from whom Antony claimed descent. In response, his enemy romanos identified with Apollo. Some early emperors took up the attributes of Hercules (eg Trajan), and later Roman Emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, went further and often identified or compared themselves with him and supported his cult; Maximian styled himself "Herculius". The cult of Hercules spread through the Roman world. In Roman Egypt, what is believed to be the remains of a Temple of Hercules are found in the Bahariya Oasis. Hercules himself is thought to have impregnated over 1000 women and spread this habit to all those who were members of his cult. |
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